Which country does not have a capital city on the BBC website?

The BBC News website provides its visitors with ‘country profiles’ which include a section titled “Facts”. Here are some examples, beginning with an old capital:

Here is a more recently designated capital:

A country’s capital city is usually the one in which its official seat of government is located, although the Netherlands is one example of an exception to that rule of thumb. But in any case, a capital is of course defined by the people of a particular country and their government, rather than by media organisations apparently having chronic difficulties with post-colonialism.

It might perhaps be suggested that the BBC’s stubborn and anachronistic refusal to name Israel’s capital city as such is related to a reluctance to be seen as taking a stance on the issue of ‘disputed territory’ – even though the district of the city in which the seat of government is located is not in fact ‘disputed’. Well, obviously not.

So if any of our readers happen to bump into a BBC reporter wandering the streets of Jerusalem, they might like to point him or her in the direction of the building pictured below.

When one is used to lying one can easily deny yet another reality: that Jerusalem is not only the seat of the Israeli government, but the principal city in Judaism and one of the oldest capital cities in the world, albeit only ever under Jewish sovereignty.

Anyway, whatever they write on their websites, the important thing is that Jerusalem is in Jewish hands and that as much of Judea and Samaria as possible joins it. Eventually the nations will get used to it but that is ultimately their problem.

“….even though the district of the city in which the seat of government is located is not in fact ‘disputed’. ” Exactly! It is in West Jerusalem and the BBC should say so.
But it is not the BBC’s fault that Tel Aviv is the internationally recognised capital of Israel.

There is a very clearly stated position of the United Nations, the International Court of Justice, and the Fourth Geneva Conventions and not least our own Government.

Seemingly, you don’t understand that in 1947 under the UN partition plan for Palestine, Jerusalem was designated an international zone.

However, Israel overran West Jerusalem by force of arms and established a de facto border known as the Green Line in 1967, occupied East Jerusalem and annexed it.

According to international law, East Jerusalem is occupied territory. Land cannot be acquired by means of force or annexation, (See Article 2 [4] of the UN Charter). The Fourth Geneva Convention also applies to this scenario.

The International Court of Justice, in 2004, confirmed that East Jerusalem is occupied territory, contrary to international law, and that Israel’s de facto annexation of territory also runs contrary to international law.

If East Jerusalem is occupied contrary to international law having been annexed illegally, how can you legitimately refer to the whole of Jerusalem as an Israeli city?

How many distortions and propaganda points can one stuff into one ignorant comment? Seemingly you don’t seem to understand anything besides Arabist propaganda.

1. The Arabs rejected the UN 1947 partition plan.
2. It was Jordan that first overran and annexed E. Jerusalem in 1948. They were warned to stay out of the war and attacked anyway and lost. Deal with it. By the way, it was the Jordanians which proceeded on a campaign of demolition of Jewish sites which your noble international community ignored.
3. International law – you need an education about international law. Try watching this video if you have the courage. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ub2x5UvjUs4. Geneva Conventions apply to conquered territory, but since Jordan took that territory by force of arms and the British no longer lay claim to it, it’s in dispute whose territory it really is.
4. The ICJ was handed a directive with premises that a priori determined Judea and Samaria as “occupied”
5. Because there is no illegal occupation except in the minds of libero-fascists like you.

“Occupation” is a term that the Arabists have applied and which the pro-Arab media have popularized. They have successfully exploited the age-old tactic of lying often enough to make the believed. Try reading this: http://www.aish.com/jw/me/48898917.html

You and others like you attack our country. You have taken sides in this conflict espousing a position that will put all of the citizens in my country at great risk for the sake of your own agenda. That makes you an enemy.

If you weren’t so gullible, the story might be different. Maybe if you had an ounce of empathy for Jews, who were first vicitimized by the Romans and then by countless others, including the Brits, and nowadays the “Palestinians” the story could also be different. I do not desire, no need, friendship from the likes of you.

There you go again, making wrong assumptions. Of course I have empathy for all people’s suffering, Jewish suffering as well. For your information, two of my grandparents, at least one great-grandparent and other relatives also died in the Holocaust. But that does not mean I have to keep quiet about evil and injustice when those who commit them happen to be of the Jewish faith. And why should the Palestinians have to pay the price for what Jews suffered through the ages? In Palestine all the faiths lived in harmony before the Mandate and they could do it again if Israel’s leaders had the courage to rely on truth and justice rather than on military might. But as I see it, Israel’s current leaders just want to throw all the Palestinians off the land and build more Jewish-only settlements. And that suits America. Tell me if I’m wrong.

Yeah, 100% dead wrong. All you “know” is the garbage promulgated by propaganda sheets like the BBC and the Guardian.

Your sympathy for Palestinians has two possible references: the establishment of the State of Israel (Palestinian “Naqba”) and the ongoing conflict. In the case of the former, you assume that Israel does not have the right to exist in the first place and the 2,000-year-old longing to return to the land, particularly Jerusalem is invalid. Therefore, Israel is always wrong and the Palestinians always right.

In the case of the latter, you simply ignore what happens, “Israel hits back first” and is therefore at fault (it’s called “Israel for Dummies”). You just ignore firing of rockets from hospitals and kindergartens into Israeli population centers, using children as human shields, blowing up buses of schoolchildren. Israel should do nothing to prevent that from happening, except of course make all the concessions in a “peace” agreement that the Palestinians could violate at any time which will also be Israel’s fault. Disgusting.

And I’m not falling for your attempt to legitimize Palestinian atrocities by labeling yourself as Jewish. It’s a disgrace that some of the most vociferous among Israel bashers happen to be Jewish.

My sympathy for Palestinians has nothing to do either with Israel’s right to exist or with the 2,000-year-old longing to return to the land. My reference is to something incontrovertible. Ben Gurion put it better than I ever could: “Let us not ignore the truth among ourselves. I insist on the truth…..The acknowledgement of this truth leads to inevitable and serious conclusions regarding our work in Palestine….the fighting is only one aspect of the conflict which is in essence a political one. And politically we are the aggressors and they defend themselves. Militarily, it is we who are on the defensive, who have the upper hand…but in the political sphere they are superior… The country is theirs, because they inhabit it, whereas we want to come here and settle down, and in their view we want to take away from them their country, while we are still outside.” From 1938 speech before Mapai Political Committee.

Link? I think that you’ve made a typographical error. I couldn’t find a reference to a speech in 1938, however Ben Gurion did indeed address the Mapai Central Committee in 1948. Here’s a link to the text. It does not contain what you have written. http://zionism-israel.com/hdoc/Ben_gurion_Speech_Jan_1948.htm

I meant a credible link. Anybody in the world can write and edit a wiki article to his her liking. However, if you do insist on relying on such a dubious source of information, you need to accept it all. I’ts not a salad bar and it includes this quote: “We do not wish, we do not need to expel the Arabs and take their place. All our aspirations are built upon the assumption — proven throughout all our activity in the Land — that there is enough room in the country for ourselves and the Arabs.”

There is no title in the WZO library “The History of The Haganah.” You should link to credible sources.

You’re misinformed. Rags like the BBC make an effort to portray an image of a West Bank with Palestinians live in confined areas, surrounded by walls. If you would bother to read the evidence posted on this site that it’s distorted information, you would become informed that it’s distortion. It’s sad that you choose not to be informed.

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